FREE Investigation Tips Using Online Tools

Many of our Client’s come to us after they have exhausted their attempts to locate and identify a person in their situation.

Below, we have put together some FREE online tools in which anyone can use to help you with your own research that may save you money with your case.

Please note that any online website that says FREE, is most likely old data, but depending on what you are looking for, it may reveal exactly what you are looking for.

Often we forget about some of the simple lookup tools, like www.whitepages.com.

White pages is a great tool to do a reverse address, reverse phone search, and it gives you other bonuses like other persons listed at the address, and an age range.

The next tool our Cost Private Investigators recommends for USA is the website www.zabasearch.com.

Zabasearch is a little more comprehensive in the results it returns, and it has an advanced search function in which you can be specific with what you are looking for.

I have found that zabasearch returns results that can be very useful such as date/year of birth, address, address history, phone numbers, and middle initials.

Even though the results are similar to White Pages, you get a few extras that can give you more solid results. Below is an example of what you will see with a search with zabasearch.

Searching People

When using OSINT to search for a person, consider every possible variation of the person’s name. Include shortened versions of the person’s name, nicknames, usernames or any version of their name you think they might use.
You can also search someone by their telephone number, email address, physical address, an image or through articles that mention them.

Black Book Online (public records)
Canada411
Intellius
MarketVisual
Peekyou
Phonebook of the World
Pipl
Public Records

Searching Social Media and Dating Sites

you can find not only a person’s profile, but also discover what they are talking about if they participate in online forums on social media platforms. Searching for secondary connections, such as friends, family members, colleagues and ex-partners can reveal a great deal of information about your target and is especially helpful if his or her security settings don’t allow access to profile information and timelines.
Many sites that are not specifically social media sites allow users to set up profiles, and these can be just as revealing as social media sites.

Searching Images and Video

Also search image and video social sites to find photos, videos and discussions related to them. You’d be surprised at how much information you can get from resources.

Flickr
Instagram
Photobucket
SmugMug

Classified Listings

There are several reasons you might want to search classified listings as a source of OSINT in the course of an investigation. In a theft investigation, the target may be trying to sell a stolen item, or might be searching for similar items online. You can also gather information about buyers and sellers from classified listings, including location information.

Amazon
Craigslist
Ebay
Hot Frog
Kijiji

Manta
PicClick
SaleSpider
Used.ca

Background Checks

Conducting background checks requires specific skills and knowledge of procedures and resources. The following links have been provided by Cynthia Hetherington. For more information visit http://www.hetheringtongroup.com.

Accurint
BRBPublications
CourtLink
LexisNexis

LittleSis
PACER
Tracers
US Tax Court

Business Search Sites

When conducting due diligence investigations, or even researching a person you are going to interview in an investigation, it’s a good idea to conduct a search on a variety of OSINT business search sites. This list isn’t comprehensive, but you can use it to get started, then follow the trail.

Better Business Bureau
BizNar
Bloomberg Businessweek
Central and Eastern European Business Directory
Corporate Information
Dun & Bradstreet
Guidestar

Hoovers
Industry Canada
Open Corporates
Orbis Directory
SEC
SEC Company Search

Specialized and Deep Web Searches

There are many sites that are not mainstream, may be buried, hard to find or simply not indexed by general search engines. When you know what you’re looking for, you can dig deeper into your research by going directly to these sites.

Airbnb
Athlinks
DomainTools
Earthcam
Fold3 (military records)
4chansearch
Global Terrorism Database
Human Trafficking
Internet Archive (same as Wayback Machine)

Ipaddresslocator
Snopes
Pageglimpse
Public Records
Wayback Machine
Whatismyipaddress
Webboar
Whoisology

GeoLocation Searches

A geolocation search can help you track a vehicle that has and Automatic Packet Reporting System (APRS), identify the whereabouts of social media activity or identify the physical location of an IP address.
Creepy
Echosec (Social Media search by location)
Google Maps APRS
IP Location

Almost every investigation requires at least some internet research. But when you’re researching the subject of an investigation you may want to avoid warning the person that they are being investigated. If tipped off, it’s easy for suspects to remove social media posts and lock down privacy settings to hide information before you have a chance to see it.
Fortunately, there are ways to keep your identity hidden while conducting internet investigations and it’s a good idea for every investigator to know how to use these tools to search anonymously online.

DuckDuckgo

DuckDuckgo is a search engine that doesn’t track users, nor does it target your IP address or your search history. You get unfiltered results that aren’t targeted to your location, previous searches, or other information known about you. You get more results and you’ll see the same results anyone else using this tool sees. Your results are also from better sources, such as crowdsourced sites and partnerships with other search engines.

HTTrack

HTTrack is a web crawler that provides a way for investigators (and others) to search offline to avoid detection. This tool allows users to download a copy of a website from the internet to a local computer. You can then use your browser to open the site’s pages and search their contents.
The tool has to be downloaded before use.

Ixquick

Similar to DuckDuckgo, Ixquick doesn’t information about you, such as your IP address, search history or your browser information. Ixquick allows provides a method of searching using a proxy to keep your IP address hidden from the sites you visit. You have three options when you search with Ixquick:

Click on the link to go to the page
Click on “highlight” to see basic information about a page so that you can decide whether or not you want to visit it

Click on “proxy” to use a proxy to search the site, for maximum privacy. The website you visit sees Ixquick’s IP address instead of the address of the searcher.

Tor

Perhaps the best known of the anonymous search tools on the internet is Tor, which stands for “the onion router” the name given to the original project software. Tor is notorious for its nefarious uses, but it is also a valuable tool in the online investigator’s arsenal. Tor masks user identities by distributing communications through a worldwide network of relays that are maintained by volunteers. It is used by criminals, law enforcement and everyone in between who has reason to hide their browsing activity and their physical location from anyone who may be watching.
The downside to Tor is that it must be downloaded, unlike many of the other free anonymous internet search tools.

Yippy

Yippy is a popular search engine for investigators and others who value their privacy on the internet. Originally called Clusty, Yippy is a meta-search engine that provides clusters of results. It is also “family friendly’, delivering only content that its owners consider to be appropriate for all ages.
Yippy does not collect personally identifiable information about users although it may collect anonymous data, such as IP addresses. Yippy uses cookies but does not use them to track behavior of users.

Cost Private Investigator

free investigative techniques using online tools